Gary couple held without bail in boy's death

By Lolly Bowean | Tribune reporterMay 11, 2011

An Indiana couple appeared in court today and was ordered held without bail in connection with the alleged abuse and death of a 13-year-old boy who was buried under concrete in a Gary mobile home park two years ago.

Riley Lowell Choate, 39, and Kimberly Leona Kubina, 45, were charged with murder and neglect on Tuesday, about a week after Christian Choate's body was unearthed from a shallow grave.

Before he died, Christian was forced to live in a small dog cage, deprived of food and wearing nothing but a diaper, his relatives told investigators.

He often was chained to a tall bed frame and punched, kicked, beaten with a metal pole in the face and head, and choked until he turned purple, court records allege. The boy was given baths in ice-cold water, and his feet and hands were bound so often he could barely stand because his limbs were numb, records show.

In court today, Choate and Kubina, both in jail-issued clothing, stood together, whispering to each other as they waited with a dozen defendants scheduled to appear before Magistrate Kathleen Sullivan.

Choate, Christian's father, told the judge he had completed school up to ninth grade and had no income, but added that "someone hired me an attorney."

That attorney, Randy Godshalk of Hammond, said his client was "understandably upset" over his son's death and plans to plead not guilty to the charges.

"I see a fair amount of inconsistency in the statements of witnesses, and that's somthing I'll need to explore," he said. "We are exploring the real possibility that this child died at the hands of someone other than Riley Choate."

Kubina is being represented by a public defender. Said she in court that Kubina had completed 11th grade and had no felony convictions.

Christian had been missing for two years before his body was discovered last week. He died in April 2009 and his father admitted to burying the boy at the Colfax Mobile Home Park in Gary, Ind., authorities said.

"Every time I think about it, I just about cry," said Butch Estrada, the boy's step-grandfather outside his Gary home Tuesday.

Estrada, whose son is married to Christian's mother, said Christian always called him "buddy," but they had not seen each other in several years. "He was a wonderful, wonderful little boy, and now we'll never know what he could have been."

According to a court affidavit filed Tuesday, Christian was regularly abused, his sister and others told Lake County sheriff's detectives.